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How to deal with the fact that your kids will probably see internet porn

By Steve Fox, Digital First Media

Updated:
03/14/2014 03:40:08 PM EDT

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When my 16-year-old son and his buddies get together at my house, they will often end up playing video games and/or watching YouTube videos. I will wander into the living room periodically to remind them — half-jokingly — not to watch pornography. It's an “Oh, Dad” moment with my son, but it's also a reminder that I want them to behave responsibly.

An old friend of mine reminded me of how important these conversations are when she recently discovered that her 10-year-old daughter had been watching porn on her iPad. Her story got me to wondering how prevalent porn-watching is with children today? I was a little stunned by what I found.

YoungMinds, a British charity with the goal to improve the “emotional wellbeing and mental health of children and young people,” recently conducted a study in this area, polling 2,000 people between the ages of 11 and 25. Their findings were startling:

— One in three 11-to-14-year-olds have watched online pornography on a tablet or mobile phone.

— More than half of 11-to-14-year-olds who had viewed pornography said it affected their relationships.

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— A quarter of 11-to-14-year-olds said they had viewed pornography with a group of friends.

— And, half of the 15-to-17 year olds polled had viewed pornography either on a tablet or phone.

It looks like the days of hiding the Playboy magazine under the mattress are gone.

And, while I think it's important to continue reminding 16-year-old boys to behave responsibly on their electronic devices, it's clear I also need to pay attention to the behaviors of my two younger daughters.

There's a certain level of trust that we place in our children, I think, when it comes to this area. But given the ease of access these days, I started thinking about how to best handle this discussion with my kids. It's not a comfortable one to have and The New York Times has an entire section devoted to this area.

One recommendation that seems pretty uniform is that if you have a family computer in the house, there should be some sort of filtering program on it. But what do you do in a multi-device household that includes mobile phones and tablets?

Many programs out there are beginning to account for that reality and will be able to monitor across multiple platforms. Some of the more popular programs include:

— AVG Family Network ($49.99) | This program cuts across platforms, working on PCs and Macs, as well as , iOS, Android and Windows devices. It bills itself as being able to monitor 60 million web sites and more than 80 social networks. The service can track instant messaging and social network threads, and since a lot of communication between kids these days happens in the social networking space, this is a nice feature.

— McAfee Family Protection ($49.99; $74.98 bundled with McAfee antivirus protection) | This program is also compatible across Macs and PCs and the Android and iOS mobile platforms, but the ability to monitor social media behavior is limited.

— Net Nanny ($39.99; 10 licenses for $79.99) | Net Nanny bills itself as a filter not only for porn sites but also cyber-bullying and online predators. It has been a favorite of viewers for years, mainly because of its ability to analyze pages on a site in real time. Another advantage is the ability to set up separate profiles for each of your children.

— K9 Web Protection(Free) | The attraction here is, well, it's free. This program offers the basics – it blocks offensive content along with malware and spyware, but you are unable to customize based upon a child's age.

In the end, though, I think that programs such as these are just one wrench in the toolbox. A few years ago, a Google executive said that parents should not expect legislation — or any technological innovation for that matter — to take the place of good parenting. And it's hard to argue against that.

With all of our devices, it's naÃ¯ve to think our children will not come across porn in their daily electronic lives. Whether it's on purpose or by mistake is almost beside the point. As parents, we need to be actively monitoring the usage habits of our children by regularly checking the histories on their devices. And, we also don't want our daughters and sons basing their self-worth and perspectives on sex off of online porn. There's no technological solution for dealing with such topics — that involves old-fashioned face-to-face communication, and we as parents shouldn't shy away from that.

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